Thursday, March 31, 2016

Bruce is selling these, and some of you might want to save the images for your files. This is a temporary post, just so you can copy and save these. Not everyone will want to pay 'big bucks' for Watchtower ephemera, and we're posting these for the friends of this blog.

Monday, March 28, 2016

CTR's passport application for 1903 states that he is 5 foot 10.5 inches tall (generally reduced to 5.10 in subsequent applications), and that his hair color is grey-brown. The form is witnessed by A.E. Williamson.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

One of Russell's obituaries says he had Food for Thinking Christians circulated in Canada by a messenger boy service. We can't find anything contemporary to the event that suggests this is so. Can you?

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

In 1889, the same year Flewwelling first learned the truth, a well-meaning man threw a magazine onto a Canadian’s bunk at a typically Western horse sales yard in Fargo, North Dakota. “Here, Mais,” said the man. “This is something that will interest you!” Leslie Mais was there to sell a herd of horses raised at his homestead in Fort Qu’Appelle, Northwest Territories (now Saskatchewan). A member of the Church of England, he was an avid Bible reader and talked to others about what he read in the Scriptures. No wonder the man tossed that magazine onto his bunk! Well, Mais read through that Watch Tower, promptly became a subscriber and continued reading that journal until his death in 1924.

As we have it:

Leslie
Valentine Brodin Mais

L. V.
Mais was, according to census and obituary reports, born in Clifton, Gloucester, England, February
14, 1869.[1] He
immigrated to Canada in 1888, and with a partner raised horses and Galloway
cattle at Fort Qu’Appelle in the Western Territories. (Now in Saskatchewan) He
signed his names as L. V. Brody Mais on his breed-book reports. As often
happened with Watch Tower adherents, his religion continued to be reported as
Church of England long after he left it. Our only record of Mais’ connection to
The Watch Tower is a brief mention in the 1979 Yearbook:

In 1889, ... a well-meaning man threw a magazine onto
a Canadian’s bunk at a typically Western horse sales yard in Fargo, North
Dakota. “Here, Mais,” said the man. “This is something that will interest you!”
Leslie Mais was there to sell a herd of horses raised at his homestead in Fort
Qu’Appelle, Northwest Territories (now Saskatchewan). A member of the Church of
England, he was an avid Bible reader and talked to others about what he read in
the Scriptures. No wonder the man tossed that magazine onto his bunk! Well,
Mais read through that Watch Tower, promptly became a subscriber and
continued reading that journal until his death in 1924. [page 80]

Usual rules. You may copy for personal use. Do not share off the blog. I don't now why we post what no-one reads, but here it is:

In all the Earth: Canada

There was interest in Canada
during the Barbourite era. The first
verifiable interest in Canada is found in the September 1878, Herald of the
Morning. Alexander Hamilton Clark of Stouffville, Ontario, wrote to Barbour.
Clark (October 13, 1831 – January 20, 1904) was an American-born immigrant and
is described on his headstone as a “U. S. Pensioner.” His pension was the
result of wounds received while enlisted with the 187th New York Infantry
during the Civil War.[1] Clark moved to Islington not
long after writing to Barbour. Dated August 11, 1878, his letter praised The
Herald. It “gave me much light and pleasure to read,” he said. “I can now
see the beautiful harmony in the Scripture as never before.” He asked for a
copy of Russell’s Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return.

A. H. Clark

Clark
presents us with a confused religious picture. The 1881 Canadian Census lists
his religion as Adventist. The 1891 Census lists him as a Congregationalist,
and in 1901 and in his death record he’s described as a Methodist. We do not
know if this represents changing religious belief or census taker’s confusion.

A
letter signed L. Kerr was also printed in the September 1878, Herald of the
Morning. We cannot positively identify this person. They wrote in the
second person: “We cannot in any way do without the paper. It is the only
message of the spirit of truth.” This may mean that Kerr wrote for his or her
family. We don’t know. Kerr ended the letter with a plea for a meeting: “We are
alone here, without any meeting. If you come to Canada, let us know before
hand.” A G. E. Pickell from Ontario sent money for tracts or a subscription in
late September the same year.

Some
from Canada attended the Worchester Conference in 1872.[2]
Russell’s booklet Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return saw circulation
in Canada. A profile of his work done when he died said: “Many students of the
Bible throughout the United States and Canada responded to the information
derived from that book, and his correspondence became voluminous.”[3] It
is likely that Canadians were on the original Watch Tower subscription
list. Russell didn’t send special representatives to Canada to circulate Food
for Thinking Christians, so there must have been sufficient pre-existing
interest upon which he could rely. While tracing interest among Canadians
during the 1880s is difficult, there are hints of it. In October 1883, Paton
included a notice in his magazine that he couldn’t use Canadian postage for
subscription payments.[4]
Since most of Paton’s readership also subscribed to Zion’s Watch Tower,
this notice presupposes Canadian interest. Among the regions sending
representatives to the Memorial Convention in 1889, Russell noted “some from
far off Manitoba.”[5] But there is no record of
the missionary work that developed interest there.

Almost
the only non-Watch Tower reference to preaching in Canada is Lesslie’s letter
to The Rainbow. Though we quote from it in the previous chapter it is
important enough in this context to present it again:

There seems among the believers in the second coming
and reign of Christ upon the earth, a strong tendency to return to what appears
to be the simplicity of believers in the Apostolic age. I send you a number of
one of their papers published in Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S., giving indication of
this, but embracing some views not clearly taught in the the remainder of this post has been deleted.

Sometime
before 1885, Brookman found comfortable association with Age-to-Come believers
and Millinnarians. He sent a letter of greetings and well-wishes to a meeting
of the Association for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge held in late September
1885. Their name was derived from an older, well-known British tract society,
and it appears that it was meant to ride on the coattails of the better-known
society. (The Watch Tower Society also borrowed the name for use on the ‘mailing
tracts’ in 1919.)

The
Association was an Age-to-Come publishing house connected to The Restitution
which printed a report of their meeting. G. Y. Young was president and H. V.
Reed, The Restitution’s editor, was vice president. We’ve
met them earlier in this history. And there were others met earlier in this
work interested in the Association. H. L. Hastings, J. P. Weethee, S. A.
Chaplin, L. C. Thomas, and Benjamin Wilson all appear in the report. And most
interestingly, B. Ackley sent them a letter of greeting.[1]

Brookman wrote
for the Association’s magazine, The Rock: A Quarterly Magazine, containing
“original essays, sermons, reviews, and sketches, on the subjects of
Conditional Immortality and the Coming and Kingdom of Christ.” Subscription
payments (twenty cents per year) were made through The Restitution.The
Rock was short-lived, but Brookman maintained his connection to the
Association at least to 1888, addressing their annual meeting on the subject, “The
Woman’s Seed and the Resurrection.”[2] He
addressed a national convention sponsored by The Restitution the same
month. S. A. Chaplin, Restitution’s editor at the time, described his
speech as “a very able sermon.”[3]

In
September 1889, he and P. G. Bowman, both associating with Russell in this
period, addressed a conference sponsored by The Restitution. Brookman’s
theme was “The Proper Course of Study for a Young Man to fit him for the
Ministry.” Bowman spoke similarly but on the topic “The Thing Most Needed to
Make a person a Successful Minister of the Gospel.”[4]

[1]The Association for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge – Report of the Second Annual Meeting at Brooklyn, N. Y., The
Restitution, October 14, 1885.

[2]Report of the Annual Meeting of the Association for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge, The Restitution, November 7, 1888.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

W. P.
Flewwelling accepted Watch Tower beliefs at the tail end of the era we’re
considering. The 1979 Yearbook history of the work in Canada says:

The light of truth was shining somewhat
brightly in eastern Canada when a shaft of such light penetrated the spiritual
darkness in western Canada. In 1889, William Flewwelling of Carberry, Manitoba,
came into possession of “The Divine Plan of the Ages,” the first volume of C.
T. Russell’s Millennial Dawn series (later called Studies in the
Scriptures). Convinced that he had found the truth, Flewwelling shared it
with others, especially after moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1890.
One man who listened with appreciation was Robert Pollock. Soon Bible study
classes were being held in the Pollock home. To our knowledge, this was the
first of such groups on Canada’s west coast.

In later years, William Flewwelling helped
to establish Bible study groups at Asquith (about 20 miles [32 kilometers] west
of Saskatoon) and Wadena, Saskatchewan. Later in life (in 1934), he moved to
Witchekan, Saskatchewan, and declared the “good news” throughout that part of
the province. William died at Chitek Lake in 1945, but many of his relatives
continue to carry on the Kingdom-preaching work he began in that area.

Flewwelling (October
6, 1861 – April 15, 1945) was newly married (to Susan Moffet) when read Plan
of the Ages.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

We're still rewriting a chapter about the earliest work in Canada. This is more difficult work than we faced with the chapter on England. (Think hair-pulling and teeth-gritting.) So, there won't be any longer posts for a while.

After we finish that re-write, we revise a chapter about the earliest work in China. We have much more detail for that than we have for Canada, which seems strange to me.

After those projects are done, we turn our notes on Historical Idealism into a chapter. Historical Idealism is the practice of turning history into a mythology. All sides are guilty. Sometimes it is intentional; sometimes it comes from writers failing to fact check.

When that's done we'll review finished chapters.

What's left is:

1. Struggles with opposers: Barbour and Adams to 1882.
2. Struggles with opposers: Anti-Ransom to 1892.
3. Paton's defection.
4. A. D. Jones and W. Conley and others.
5. Approach to 1881.
6. Other lands. (May be folded into another chapter.)
7. In the world but not of it.
8. Roots of WT theology.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

A recent post referred to early readers of George
Storrs in the British Isles. One such reader was Frederick Richard Lees, editor
of a British paper called The Truth Seeker.

Storrs received a copy of the paper and republished
an article signed PATHFINDER in the January and February 1848 issues of Bible
Examiner. He sent copies of BE to Britain to reach the editor. Lees wrote back and his response
was published in BE for July 1848.

Lees’ periodical ran for several years. It was sometimes called The (Manx) Truth Seeker in a reference to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. Due to a loophole in British Law mail from the Isle of Man was exempted from paying postal fees at this time, so a number of enterprising publications took advantage of this.

A couple of issues later (BE September 1848), Lees wrote a long letter about the state of conditionalist teaching in the British Isles. This shows that Storrs was already well known in some quarters in Britain. After detailing his own preaching on the subject. Lees wrote:

“In 1846 I began to find that other and influential persons in Britain, had also their thoughts turned to this topic. My friend, JOSEPH BARKER, (now of Wortley, near Leeds,) formerly a celebrated Methodist Minister, but expelled for ‘heresy,’ had republished your ‘Six Sermons’ in a cheap form, and circulated them amongst his friends - ‘The Christian Reformers’ - throughout the North of England.”

The circulation of Six Sermons in Britain obviously created concern in more orthodox circles because John Howard Hinton M.A. wrote the book Athanasia (published London 1849) to combat conditionalist views. Out of its 540 pages, Hinton reportedly devoted 50 of them in an attempted rebuttal of Storrs’ Six Sermons. (According to Hinton's book Six Sermons was published in Newcastle-on-Tyne in the UK in 1844.) Lees sent Storrs a copy of Athanasia and for a number of months over 1849, Storrs’ Bible Examiner dealt point by point with Hinton’s objections, before finally drawing a line under the subject.

Frederick Richard Lees (1815-1897) does not appear to have taken much part in subsequent theological developments. According to census returns, he spent his life as an author, publisher and lecturer, but his specific field was the temperance movement. He died as a “gentleman” leaving an estate of over four and a half thousand GBP.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

But we need a firm identity for the man who wrote this letter printed in the 1891 Watch Tower:

England.DEAR BRO. RUSSELL:--Thanks to you beyondexpression, for the parcel of tracts, the envelopes,and then the TOWER, in quick succession.And I trust by a judicious use of themto disseminate the truth to those who are inbondage to sectarianism. As to the new appearanceof my old favorite, the TOWER, I did notknow its face, until I opened the cover, whichmade my eyes sparkle with joy. How good themotto--to bear the cross, then wear the crown.May we be found worthy. Yours in Christianfellowship, GEO. SHORT.

As a prequel to the cutting Rachael posted here a
few days ago about S D Rogers, this is how his problems seem to have started in
Chanute, Kansas, in late 1903. You will not be able to read anything from the
above graphic, but below is a transcription of the OCR from two issues of the
paper. The title “Rev” Rogers appears to be self-styled, his focus on a “new method”
of preaching the gospel carries echoes of his behaviour in Britain in 1893, and
he either had a penchant for pretty girls, or was somewhat accident prone.
Perhaps the most important detail it adds is that he had come from Vassar, MI.

Starting with the December 31, 1903 issue:

ALLEN WAS WRATHY

City Marshall Pronounces an Artistic Anathema Upon
Bogus Minister Who Insults a Girl

Marshall Allen today arrested a nomad who
represented himself to be an evangelist with a new method of spreading the
gospel.

The fellow
panhandled several men about town for money to aid the cause, among them D H
Fisher, landlord of the Oriental Hotel. He afterward made an offensive proposal
to one of the young ladies employed at the Oriental and Mr Fisher notified the
marshal, who arrested the fellow and took him to the police court. On
examination he gave his name as Rogers, and said he belonged to no
denomination, but was too broad in his views for any such petty distinctions.

The young lady whom he accosted refused to appear in
police court against him because of the unpleasant publicity which the trial of
the (?) would cause, and the bogus clergyman was released after a thoroughly artistic
lecture by Marshal Allen, who told him what he thought of him in language
which, though not altogether choice, was certainly vigorous enough for the
occasion.

The next day, Rogers gave his side of the story to
the paper. From the January 1, 1904 issue:

VICTIM OF MISTAKE

Rev. Rogers States His Side of Controversy Between
Himself and City’s Police Authorities

(First paragraph too scrambled by OCR to transcribe
completely)

Rev. Rogers said he was the victim of circumstances.
He went to a hotel in the city and secured board and lodging when he first
arrived in Chanute. He was assigned to a room in the rear of the building and
along in the evening he noticed the efforts of a young lady to gain entrance to
a room. He offered his services to the young lady, and helped her open the
door. While they were in the hall at work on the­­­­ lock they were seen by a
hotel official and the next day Marshall Allen requested Rev.Rogers to
accompany him to police court.

“This was the
sum and substance of the circumstances which led to this embarrassing affair,”
said Rev.Rogers this morning. “I was released because there was no reason
whatever for my arrest.”

Mr Rogers’ home is in Vassar, Mich. He is at work on
the compiling and publication of a work on the Bible, treating especially of
the first chapters of Genesis and the book of Revelations. The work will be
issued from the press some time this spring.

Note - one wonders whether his proposed book ever
saw the light of day.

Monday, March 7, 2016

As usual, you are fee to copy this for your own use. Do not share it off the blog. This is copyrighted material.

In All the Earth: The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was the
target of the first concentrated international missionary activity. It is
impossible to gage interest in Britain before the publication of Food for
Thinking Christians. Previous to its publication the only letters appearing
in Zion’s Watch Tower were doctrinal in nature, and few names and few or
no locations were noted.

At least by 1850 there were
readers of The Bible Examiner in Scotland; a letter from William Glen
Montcrieff a noted Scot Conditionalist appeared in the May 1850 issue. Letters
from other British Conditionalists appear in The Bible Examiner too.
There had been some notice of the work in The Rainbow. A British
clergyman and Barbourite, Elias H. Tuckett, wrote three articles for Rainbow.
There may have been some small residual interest from that.[1] Barbour
mailed his Coming of the Lord tract to the British journal The
Christadelphian, which reviewed it negatively.[2]
Later The Rainbow reviewed The Three Words, though somewhat
negatively. The book saw a very limited circulation in England.[3]
There is also some indication that Paton mailed material to his relatives in
Scotland, but this seems to have born no fruitage. Yet, a prominent adherent in
Newark, New Jersey, claimed dedicated interest in England and elsewhere. “We
have,” he said, “members all over America, England, Australia, I think, and
probably in Germany.”[4]

Friday, March 4, 2016

“Rev.” S. D. Rogers, who was in Chanute last week soliciting
subscriptions to a religious book, which he clams he is writing, unexpectedly
reappeared here yesterday, says the Chanute Blade. He was in a state of high
Indignation and declared that the newspapers would have to be forthcoming with
retractions of stores printed about him or he would do all kinds of things to
the publishers.

Rogers was fresh from the Humboldt calaboose [ie jail] but he kept
this fact carefully guarded as a secret in his own breast. About the middle of
the afternoon colonel O. H. Fisher, landlord of the Oriental hotel, and Rogers
met by accident in Boschert & Williams' drug store. Rogers made some remark
to Colonel Fisher, when the colonel told him something which must have sounded
unpleasantly on his ears. “It is my candid opinion,” said Colonel Fisher, “that
you never occupied a pulpit in your life. If you are indeed a minister of the
gospel you fall far short of my standard of the clergy.”

Colonel Fisher had entertained Rogers at his 'hotel a day or
two last week, and while there Rogers addressed an insulting remark to one of
the waitresses. Upon leaving Chanute Rogers went to Humboldt, and up to supper
time Monday had collected $14 in subscriptions to his forthcoming book. After
supper, and when he was in the parlor talking to a couple of ladles, an officer
arrested him on the suspicion that he was “grafting” the people of' Humboldt. Rogers
was locked up but was released yesterday morning.

It was not 'ascertained whether he paid a fine or was
permitted to go scot-free. Rogers, as was told by The Blade yesterday morning,
claims that he is writing a book which is explanatory of the spiritual meaning
of the Scriptures and which will bear the title, “The Opening of the Books.” He
is traveling over the country getting cash subscriptions in advance for the
volume. Some say that he got as much as a hundred dollars from Chanute parties.

When S D Rogers traveled to Britain on a ship named the Teutonic, he sailed from New York and arrived in Liverpool on 4 October 1893. He called himself Rev. S D Rogers, occupation Minister, and he is listed as single, aged 46. That would give his birth year at around 1847.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Partial rough draft. Comments welcome:Updated to full except for the last three paragraphs. A temporary post. Usual rules.

In All the Earth: The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was the
target of the first concentrated international missionary activity. It is
impossible to gage interest in Britain before the publication of Food for
Thinking Christians. Previous to its publication the only letters appearing
in Zion’s Watch Tower were doctrinal in nature, and few names and few or
no locations were noted.

At least by 1850 there were
readers of The Bible Examiner in Scotland; a letter from William Glen
Montcrieff a noted Scot Conditionalist appeared in the May 1850 issue. Letters
from other British Conditionalists appear in The Bible Examiner too.
There had been some notice of the work in The Rainbow. A British
clergyman and Barbourite, Elias H. Tuckett, wrote three articles for Rainbow.
There may have been some small residual interest from that.[1] Barbour
mailed his Coming of the Lord tract to the British journal The
Christadelphian, which reviewed it negatively.[2]
Later The Rainbow reviewed The Three Words, though somewhat
negatively. The book saw a very limited circulation in England.[3]
There is also some indication that Paton mailed material to his relatives in
Scotland, but this seems to have born no fruitage. Yet, a prominent adherent in
Newark, New Jersey, claimed dedicated interest in England and elsewhere. “We
have,” he said, “members all over America, England, Australia, I think, and
probably in Germany.”[4]

Russell asked John Corbin
Sunderlin and later J. J. Bender to travel to the United Kingdom to publish Food
for Thinking Christians and to direct a massive circulation campaign.
Sunderlin had prior experience as an itinerate photographer and may have been
chosen on that basis. Less is known of J. J. Bender. Historians including Watch
Tower writers have never profiled him. Joseph J. Bender was a traveling sales
agent for and later owner of a chemical company.[5] In
most city directory listings he is noted by the initials “J. J.” but his full
name is given in J.F. Diffenbacher’s Directory of Pittsburgh and Allegheny
cities for 1881-1882. Bender had published The Standard Class-Book for
Sunday-School Teacher’s Minutes in 1871, which was favorably reviewed by The
Sunday School Journal that year.[6] In
May 1886, He and a partner purchased The Bookmart, a magazine published
in Pittsburgh devoted to book and autography collecting.[7]

Sunderlin was in Britain by
July 11, 1881, when he registered with Gillig’s American Exchange in London, “a
familiar and popular resort with Americans in the English metropolis.”[8] He
would receive his mail and make currency exchanges a Gillig’s. It appears that
the British edition of Food for Thinking Christians saw publication
before the American edition of September 1881, but this is uncertain. Sunderlin
arranged with William Cate, a London printer, to publish the booklet.[9]

Sunderlin returned to America aboard the S.S. Abyssinia, suffering from what was
called “over-exertion incident to the arrangements for the distribution of
‘Food’ in Great
Britain
and Ireland.”[10] Russell
more closely defined this as Rheumatic Fever.[11] There
was a gap between Sunderlin’s return on September 8th and Bender’s
arrival. Bender arrived in mid-September, registering at Gillig’s on September
17 1881. He would remain in Brittan until early November.[12]
Sunderlin seems to have had the preliminary arrangements well in hand before
Bender’s arrival. By October 1, 1881, Bender could report from Edinburgh:

The remainder of this post was deleted. I give readers a limited time to read full chapter posts.

Elizabeth
Horne and Aaron Riley became correspondents, and cooperated in the work. By
1892, Riley had a group of twenty to thirty men that met regularly for Bible
study, and he exchanged letters regularly with “sister Horne.” The both met
Russell during his visit that year, and the Russells stayed in Elizabeth Horne’s
home. The practice of preaching in parks is verifiable from the The Watch
Tower, but there is insufficient biographical information to tell which of
the many Elizabeth Hornes resident in London she was. Her husband’s name is
never give.

Among the first permanent
associations built off receipt of Watch Tower pamphlets was a small group in
Islington, London. The brief history in the 1973 Yearbook of Jehovah’s
Witnesses says:

Tom
Hart of Islington, London, wrote for and received three pamphlets. He also
received Zion’s Watch Tower regularly for nine months, all without
charge-a new experience in the religious field. From then on he became a
regular subscriber. He was struck by the theme that ran through each issue,
namely, “Get out of her, my people” – a Scriptural call to leave Christendom’s
religious groups and follow Bible teaching. He and a fellow railwayman,
Johnathan Ling, began studying. This led to Hart’s formally resigning from the
chapel in 1884, soon to be followed by Ling and a dozen others who began to
meet together. This appears to be the first record of regular meetings of this
sort in Britain. Many who shared in such meetings also showed a willingness to
engage in the work of spreading enlightenment to others.[1]

Thom Hart was born in Calcutta,
India, in 1853. At the time of the 1881 Census he had moved his family from the
Islington address to 5 Lavinia Grove, Middlesex, London. He was “a carman” for
one of the railroads. In another place he called “a railroad shunter.” He and
his wife had three children, two sons and one daughter, all under the age of
four. I can find no helpful information about Johnathan Ling.

The Yearbook is mistaken in
its view that the group organized by Tom Hart was the first in the U.K., but a
small group was meeting in London by March 1884. It may have been Tom Hart who
wrote a letter appearing in the March issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. Whoever
the writer was, he expressed his continuing appreciation of the Watch Tower.
He always prayed for its safe arrival and was thankful that he had not
missed one issue in two years. “I am able to report a little progress for the
last twelve months,” he wrote. “Our meeting